Mame Outdated?

[Tetsuro]

OK. Some people are suggesting the Caanoo won't be very supported because of OpenPandora. Is there any truth to this?

Maybe it will not be supported LIKE the Wiz but at the end the OpenPandora will be a BIG failure in terms of diffusion so even the developers will find that they are spending lot of time for little glory and maybe will turn their attention back.

Anyway Wiz vs Caanoo is a no brainer, the Caanoo is an update on so many aspects that the Wiz is already OLD. Think at the better buttons layout, the bigger screen, the USB host. Caanoo is clearly superior, it's not like they have halved the RAM bandwidth, that would have been a problem. A lower CAS latency is just a minor issue, maybe you will not be able to overclock it to hell but it's a fairly more powerful console than the GP2X F100/200 that worked fine with emulators.

 

[jlenoconel]

OK. Some people are suggesting the Caanoo won't be very supported because of OpenPandora. Is there any truth to this?

Maybe it will not be supported LIKE the Wiz but at the end the OpenPandora will be a BIG failure in terms of diffusion so even the developers will find that they are spending lot of time for little glory and maybe will turn their attention back.

Anyway Wiz vs Caanoo is a no brainer, the Caanoo is an update on so many aspects that the Wiz is already OLD. Think at the better buttons layout, the bigger screen, the USB host. Caanoo is clearly superior, it's not like they have halved the RAM bandwidth, that would have been a problem. A lower CAS latency is just a minor issue, maybe you will not be able to overclock it to hell but it's a fairly more powerful console than the GP2X F100/200 that worked fine with emulators.

I agree. I hope I can still play Mortal Kombat arcade though, like on the Wiz :s
Will probably pick a Caanoo up anyway.

 

[CKeichel]

OK. Some people are suggesting the Caanoo won't be very supported because of OpenPandora. Is there any truth to this?

For quite a while there have been different open handhelds on the market, that got support at the same thime.
While the Wiz was alive, Dingux on the Dingoo got a lot of support as well.
Nobody knows today how much support any new open handheld will get, nobody can predict the future, but when I look at the support the last Gamepark devices got, I would say, chances are good, the Caanoo gets the support the Wiz had.

 

[jlenoconel]

OK. Some people are suggesting the Caanoo won't be very supported because of OpenPandora. Is there any truth to this?

For quite a while there have been different open handhelds on the market, that got support at the same thime.
While the Wiz was alive, Dingux on the Dingoo got a lot of support as well.
Nobody knows today how much support any new open handheld will get, nobody can predict the future, but when I look at the support the last Gamepark devices got, I would say, chances are good, the Caanoo gets the support the Wiz had.

Well I am excited. The PSP is still very supported for homebrew and I hope that Gamepark Holdings platforms do have that kind of support. I wish I knew how to code or port emulators over to different platforms. I have no idea about that stuff but it would be cool to learn. Thanks for all the info though and I hope to pick up one of these babies soon.

 

[jlenoconel]

OK. Some people are suggesting the Caanoo won't be very supported because of OpenPandora. Is there any truth to this?

For quite a while there have been different open handhelds on the market, that got support at the same thime.
While the Wiz was alive, Dingux on the Dingoo got a lot of support as well.
Nobody knows today how much support any new open handheld will get, nobody can predict the future, but when I look at the support the last Gamepark devices got, I would say, chances are good, the Caanoo gets the support the Wiz had.

Well I am excited. The PSP is still very supported for homebrew and I hope that Gamepark Holdings platforms do have that kind of support. I wish I knew how to code or port emulators over to different platforms. I have no idea about that stuff but it would be cool to learn. Thanks for all the info though and I hope to pick up one of these babies soon.

 

[traylorpark]

I'm not at all interested in homebrew games (and consider them mostly a waste of time and resources).

I wanted to join this conversation far too late ... just so I can huff at this remark.

Huff.

 

[klikklak]

This was pretty painful to read.

 

[crow_riot]

I'm not at all interested in homebrew games (and consider them mostly a waste of time and resources).

I wanted to join this conversation far too late ... just so I can huff at this remark.

Huff.

agreed - in mind that IMO the more innovative and interesting games were made by "homebrew" devs...

 

[Tetsuro]

I'm not at all interested in homebrew games (and consider them mostly a waste of time and resources).

I wanted to join this conversation far too late ... just so I can huff at this remark.

Huff.

agreed - in mind that IMO the more innovative and interesting games were made by "homebrew" devs...

Captain Blood was homebrew? Super Mario was homebrew? Ultima was homebrew? Ultima Online was homebrew? Civilization was homebrew? Wolfenstein was homebrew?

Probably 95% of the innovative titles came out as commercial software with few exceptions. And it's not all about 'innovation'... I would play the plain old Final Fantasy IV mechanics forever.

I'm not against homebrew, I just said that IMHO is uninteresting for the most part. It's a point of view, not the Bible.

 

[CKeichel]

I'm not at all interested in homebrew games (and consider them mostly a waste of time and resources).

I wanted to join this conversation far too late ... just so I can huff at this remark.

Huff.

agreed - in mind that IMO the more innovative and interesting games were made by "homebrew" devs...

Captain Blood was homebrew? Super Mario was homebrew? Ultima was homebrew? Ultima Online was homebrew? Civilization was homebrew? Wolfenstein was homebrew?

Probably 95% of the innovative titles came out as commercial software with few exceptions. And it's not all about 'innovation'... I would play the plain old Final Fantasy IV mechanics forever.

I'm not against homebrew, I just said that IMHO is uninteresting for the most part. It's a point of view, not the Bible.

No Ultima Onlne was no homebrew, but Ultima was homebrew. It was homebrew like most of the early games of the 8 Bit age. There were countless classics like Manic Miner or Gridrunner that people coded in their free time at home, that were later released commercially and become a big success.

 

[Exophase]

No Ultima Onlne was no homebrew, but Ultima was homebrew. It was homebrew like most of the early games of the 8 Bit age. There were countless classics like Manic Miner or Gridrunner that people coded in their free time at home, that were later released commercially and become a big success.

Sure, a lot of computer games were. But most console games were professionally/commercially developed, going all the way back to the Atari 2600's library.

 

[CKeichel]

With console games you are right, homebrew was not possible on those platforms, but a lot of innovation in the early games industry came from computer games. Many genres were born on computers, like the RPG, the Text-Adventure, the Simulation. Don't get me wrong, I love console games as much as computer games, but in the early years, computer games were often more innovative, because the developers had more freedom, they didn't worked in a big company like Atari, Mattel, Coleco or Nintendo.

Here in europe, during the 1980s consoles were not as nearly as widespread as computers were. The whole british software industry, that played an important role till the mid 1990s was founded on homebrew development.
Many coders for the C64, that grew up in the demo scene released homebrew titles here in germany in the early 1990s.
So I would say homebrew games development was important for games since it's beginning. Today games like Giana's Return, Cave Story or N are, at least for me, prime examples, that homebrew development is neither dead nor uninteresting.

 

[Exophase]

I think someone who grew up more on computers might be more bound to say that their software had a greater impact. In my opinion consoles had plenty of innovation... which one was "more" innovative depends entirely on your preferences. As far as prevalence goes, an argument similar to the one you're making could be made for the USA or Japan, except for consoles which were the more common gaming platform throughout the 80s.

Of course homebrew is important and not dead or uninteresting. But claims of much more innovation historically coming from homebrew seem unbalanced to me..

 

[CKeichel]

If it sounded, like I wanted to say "Computer games are more innovative the console games", I didn't said it right. What I meant was, that in the early days (1978-1984) computer games produced more innovative games then console games. This was because the most important console of that time, the VCS had many terrific arcade conversions, arcade conversions were the games that sold best in that time and the arcade games were innovative as it could be, but the aim of the conversions was not to be innovative, but to reproduce those arcade games as best as possible. Nothing is wrong with that, I play some of the VCS games till today.
Activision and Imagic had some pretty innovative games, that weren't based on arcade machines, this is true, but they came out late (it was a very short period, till the market crashed) and, again in my opinion, games like Ultima or Manic Miner had a greater impact in the long term, then Pitfall or Cosmic Arc. But this is, just my opinion and open to debate.
Again, I love console games, I played on every generation since the VCS and would never deny, that tons of innovative games were released for consoles. It's just that I don't agree with the statement "Probably 95% of the innovative titles came out as commercial software with few exceptions.", because in the early games industry the line between homebrew and commercial was to blurred.

 

[Exophase]

Well alright, I think we can mainly agree on that... Atari 2600 was pretty stale, the console market fell apart before NES.. and computers were technologically way ahead of Atari 2600 by the early 80s.

Of course, arcades got a lot at this time too, and those were definitely not homebrew.

 

[CKeichel]

Here your right, it's always astonishing to sort the arcade games in Mame per year and look at the years 80-83, so many classics in such a short time, the industry was bursting with innovation at that time.

 

[TuxDot]

I'm not at all interested in homebrew games (and consider them mostly a waste of time and resources).

Someone's obviously never played Cave Story.

 

[Tetsuro]

I'm not at all interested in homebrew games (and consider them mostly a waste of time and resources).

Someone's obviously never played Cave Story.

Today I'm less able to take compromises. I like to see quality graphics/audio and so on... I'm not interested at 'innovation', I do not like the Wii for example. I'm interested just on playing the old classics with GP2x.

 

[CKeichel]

Most games today don't have good graphics, they only have hires textures. A game like "Okami" on the PS2 or "Fragile Dreams" on the Wii has, in my opinion, much better graphics, then any "Gears of War", "God of War" or "Modern warfare", cause they both have a visual style, which most HD games lack. And because of this, I prefer a homebrew shooter from Kenta Cho like "Tumiki Fighters" or a game like "n", both have so much more visual style and are gameplaywise much more interesting then many games from companies liek EA or Activision.

 

[TuxDot]

I'm not at all interested in homebrew games (and consider them mostly a waste of time and resources).

Someone's obviously never played Cave Story.

Today I'm less able to take compromises. I like to see quality graphics/audio and so on... I'm not interested at 'innovation', I do not like the Wii for example. I'm interested just on playing the old classics with GP2x.

Cave Story isn't 'innovative' per se... (well some may see it as so, I just see it as a very well designed game, with a very good story; guess it would depend on your meaning of innovative)

It's fun.

True, Cave Story isn't Muramasa: The Demon Blade (a Wii game, which is probably the single most beautiful game I've ever played, at the very least absolutely stunning for a side scrolling game); but it's fun. All of it was made by one guy, in his spare time, and was distributed for free. Later it was translated to English and ported to almost every platform imaginable, and a large fanbase was created around the game and its developer. An official WiiWare port was also made with slightly tweaked graphics and music and it became the top-selling game there for a while with stellar reviews.

Did I mention it's fun?

My point isn't that homebrew/freeware games are somehow superior to other games; simply that they can be just as good, and it'd be rather foolish IMO to ignore them simply because they weren't made by a large company, or don't have sexy bloom effects everywhere.